Hearing aids protect against dementia in people with hearing problems

by time news

A study published in “The Lancet Public Health” conducted on more than 400,000 people suggests that those who experience hearing loss and do not use hearing aids may be at higher risk of dementia than people without hearing loss. According to the work, those people who used hearing aids did not appear to have an increased risk of dementia.

After adjusting for other factors, the analysis suggests a dementia risk of 1.7% in people with hearing loss who do not use hearing aids, compared with 1.2% among people without hearing loss or who experience hearing loss but use hearing aids. earphones.

In 2020, a study by the Lancet Commission estimated that hearing loss is associated with 8% of dementia cases worldwide. Now, the results of this work highlight the urgent need to introduce hearing aids early when someone begins to experience hearing problems.

The authors of the research call for a greater public awareness about the potential protective effects of hearing aids against dementia, increased accessibility to hearing aids by reducing costs, and more support for primary care workers to detect hearing impairments, raise awareness, and provide treatment, such as hearing aid fittings.

There is increasing evidence that hearing loss may be the most impactful modifiable risk factor for dementia in midlife; however, the efficacy of hearing aid use in reducing dementia risk in the real world had not been sufficiently explored. Now, says the paper’s author, Dongshan Zhu, Shandong University (China), “our study provides best evidence to date which suggests that hearing aids could be a cost-effective and minimally invasive treatment to mitigate the potential impact of hearing loss on dementia.”

The researchers analyzed data from 437,704 people who were part of the UK Biobank database. The mean age of study participants at enrollment was 56 years and the mean follow-up time was 12 years.

Around three-quarters of the participants (325,882/437,704) had no hearing loss, and the remaining quarter (111,822) had some level of hearing loss. Among people with hearing loss, 11.7% (13,092 / 111,822) used hearing aids.

After controlling for other factors, the study suggests that, compared with participants with normal hearing, people with hearing loss who did not wear hearing aids had a 42% increased risk of dementia from any cause.

This equates to approximately a 1.7% risk of dementia in people with hearing loss who do not use hearing aids, compared to 1.2% among people without hearing loss or who experience hearing loss but use hearing aids.

The researchers also looked at how other factors, such as loneliness, social isolation, and depressive symptoms, might affect the association between hearing loss and dementia.

The study suggests that less than 8% of the association between hearing aid use and decreased risk of dementia could be eliminated by improving psychosocial problems.

For Charles Marshall, from Queen Mary University of London (United Kingdom), “this study provides high-quality evidence that people with hearing loss who use hearing aids have a lower risk of dementia than those with hearing loss who do not.” use. This raises the possibility that a portion of dementia cases could be prevented by using hearing aids to correct hearing loss.”

However, speaking to the Science Media Center he acknowledges that the observational nature of this study makes it difficult to be sure that hearing aids are actually the cause of reduced dementia risk.

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